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56 °F Forecast | Road Cams Thursday, April 14, 2005 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Health Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Real Estate Guide Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley SHOP OUR VALLEY AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Classified Place an ad TOP JOBS EXTRA Ashland News NIE Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People Volunteer Moving here? eSouthernOregon CUSTOMER SERVICE FAQ's Advertise with us Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend April 14, 2005 Elena Efunia discusses her family's plight. ‘Constant fear’ for her Kyrgyzstan family By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune Elena Efunia began carrying her cell phone on a cord near her heart on March 23, the day the revolution erupted in her native Kyrgyzstan. "I keep it here because I call my family every day now — I’m afraid for them," said the graduate student at Southern Oregon University who lives in Central Point. ""I call them because they cannot call me," she added. "Everything was destroyed. ... My family, including my husband, is frightened, desperate and scared." Advertisement Her father’s computer business was destroyed, her father and husband beaten and her parents’ home vandalized during the early days of the violent revolt. Moreover, her family has been warned to leave because they represent both the Jewish and Russian minority, she said. President Askar Akayev fled to Russia just ahead of the mob which stormed Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian country bordering China and three other "stans" — Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan and its three sister countries are former Soviet Union republics which became independent states after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Efunia’s family lives in Bishkek, which has a population of about 1 million, by far the largest city in the largely poor country of about 5 million. Akayev, who ruled the country since its independence, was ousted following a dispute which grew out of parliamentary elections Feb. 27 and subsequent runoffs, according to The Associated Press. The revolt was also fueled by deep-rooted poverty and allegations of corruption against Akayev and his family, AP reported. But Efunia, 25, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Bishkek, where she was a member of the national volleyball team for four years, says the conflict also arises out of ethnic and religious differences. Her father, Boris, a law school graduate, is Jewish; her mother, Valentina, is Russian. Her husband, Rafail Subaev, is also of Russian descent. "They told my dad and husband to get out of their Kyrgyz land because Jewish and Russian people will not be allowed to stay," she said of the men who broke into her parents’ ground-floor apartment during the March upheaval. "More people over there are starting to think that if you are not Kyrgyz, then you don’t have a right to be there," she said. Efunia, who traveled home in summer 2002 and has since been visited by her father, believes Islamic extremists are fueling much of the unrest. "Me and my family are scared of this — we do not want to live in constant fear," she said. In her homeland, the Kyrgyz is the largest ethnic group at some 65 percent of the population, followed by 14 percent Uzbek, 12.5 percent Russian and the rest other nationalities. The religious breakdown is 75 percent Muslim, 20 percent Russian Orthodox and 5 percent other, including Jewish. "Being half Jewish and half Russian, I am scared to death ... to go to Kyrgyzstan because I know what I will have to face there," she said, noting she hopes to eventually get her family members out of the country where they were born. "I know there will be no life for us there now." Efunia arrived in Medford on the tragic day of Sept. 11, 2001, to start school at SOU, where she completed a bachelor’s degree in business in 2002. She is now studying for a master’s degree in business management at the university while working part-time for Rogue Federal Credit Union. But above the peace she found in Southwestern Oregon looms the cloud of unrest in her native land. "Now many business people who are not Kyrgyz have writing on their businesses ‘Get Out!’ " she said. "They have harassed my family. My mom and my sister have to stay at home now." Her sister, Yulia, 19, a university student in Bishkek, quickly returned home on the day the revolution broke out after she saw tanks and mobs in the streets, Elena Efunia said. That night, the mobs destroyed most of the businesses in the city, including her father’s, she said. "They just left the walls, nothing else," she said, adding that her father has organized a relief fund for businesses in Bishkek. "I was shaking when he told me. The next day they came to my parents’ apartment and told them to get out." It was the next afternoon when men pounded on the apartment door and broke in, she said, adding her father and husband tried to stop them. The men demanded to know where her mother and sister were, she said. "They were looking for females because they were told that Jewish blood and nationality is transferred through mothers," she said, noting her father and husband feared the women were going to be raped and killed. Fortunately, her mother and sister had hid in a neighbor’s storage shed where they stayed for two days. "The (men) kicked and bit my father and my husband," she said, adding they required medical care for their injuries. The men left, but not before stealing the television and other valuable appliances, she said. "Now my mother and my sister have to put the scarves on the heads whenever they get out of the apartment because it is a Muslim law for a woman to be with a covered head," she said. Although elections are set for July 10, Efunia is not optimistic peace will return to Kyrgyzstan. "Even though it was proclaimed that Kyrgyzstan is a democratic country — there is nothing there that would prove it now," she said. How to help To help those whose businesses were destroyed in Kyrgyzstan last month, Elena Efunia has started a local fund-raising effort. Checks can be made out to the Kyrgyzstan Donation Account and sent to Rogue Federal Credit Union, 1370 Center Drive, Medford, OR 97501. She is working with a non-profit organization and her father who has started a relief effort in Kyrgyzstan. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Student Loan Consolidation Conference Calls - $50/Month Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker, Trunk, Footlockers home equity loans helzberg Distance Education Diamonds Slippers Student Loans afsa teleconferencing Memory Foam Mattress w2 forms Tatoo Fasa Advertisement s